When it appeared that Hurricane Gustav was headed on a path near where I had planned to evacuate - to a rural Avoyelles Parish farmhouse in Big Bend, La., my refuge during Katrina three years ago - I did a reverse Horace Greeley and told myself, "Go east, old man, go east."

The traffic was beyond ludicrous, nine hours on old Highway 90 from the Crescent City to the Florida Panhandle via the Mobile Funnel, re-named during this evacuation. The highway was a never-ending kaleidoscope of red tail lights, the memory of radio traffic dude T-Ben Boudreaux saying, "Creep 'n' crawl, y'all" frequently visiting my thoughts.

But that's all in the rear view mirror. And here I sit, in the Watercolor cabana, south of Choctawhatchee Bay, Fla., watching waves from the Gulf crash onto a sandy beach under blue skies, an icy key lime colada about 2 feet from my laptop, and thinking about life's ironies.

It was only a few weeks ago when I interviewed an amusing character, a Chalmette resident named Carl Gustafson, of Swedish descent, who joked that I should not confuse him with King Gustav of Sweden. Little did I think that anything named Gustav would be in my immediate future.

I guess I should have checked the names of this year's storms.

Everything fell into place because my son, my daughter and her husband had already planned a Labor Day vacation to Watercolor on Florida's Emerald Coast along with some friends. They assured us they could squeeze us in. Sometimes you catch a break. Sometimes you hit the trifecta - even in a hurricane evacuation.

So I'll tough it out in the sun and sand until Mayor C. Ray lets me go home to re-stock my shelves or re-charge my batteries, or re-fry my beans or whatever the heck he was trying to say to Orleanians that as usual left folks saying, "What?"

My impulsive evacuation game plan worked out for me. But not everybody's game plan went as well, even the well-planned ones. Take the case of Johnny Blancher Jr., impresario of Ye Olde College Inn restaurant and bar on Carrollton Avenue.

Blancher and his family decided to evacuate to Lafayette, which at one time seemed like a fine choice, but nasty storms don't always respect fine choices.

Let Blancher tell he story:

"I had a brilliant plan to pack all the meats and beer - close to the door, of course. I bought a refrigerated trailer, to run on a generator once we lost power, and off we went. After packing all night and monitoring the weather, we set out for Lafayette.

"Moments into contra-flow, approaching the Loyola Avenue overpass in Kenner, a wheel of the trailer broke off and ricocheted into my wife's truck behind me and one lane over. I started to pull over and before I could the other wheel came off and I had to drag the trailer to the median."

Can you imagine? But here comes the weird part.

"Before I could even get out of the truck, CNBC was there to get the story," he said, as if the media crew appeared out of nowhere. Maybe they've set up a Kenner bureau - we're always making news, it seems. Everyone was able to remain composed despite this ridiculous turn of events. His wife Christine was able to pull over in her vehicle, which sustained only superficial damage. The allowed them to proceed to Lafayette.

The trailer was towed to his aunt's house in Metairie because the authorities would not allow it to be brought into New Orleans.

"What a way to make the NBC Nightly News," Blancher said, "but I guess it beats your daughter being Paris Hilton."

Just a note: Blancher did not disclose the location of his stocked trailer. I was thinking its contents could provide a good tailgate party this weekend.

Meanwhile, here in Florida, my son-in-law was on the phone to his parents in Savannah, Ga., checking out their personal flight path from the wrath of Hurricane Hanna. They live on Skidaway Island, a barrier island connected to Savannah by a drawbridge over Skidaway Narrows, part of the Intracoastal Waterway.

Under mandatory evacuation, after a certain time, the drawbridge is left in the up position, the bridge operator departs, and anyone left on the island has no options. There's no last-ditch dash, and you're stuck.

It's one of those times in your life when you can't say, "I'll cross that bridge when I get to it."